trevanian
Rear Admiral
Worth remembering the initial order was just 13 episodes.
They were renewed for a second season before even 7 or 8 had aired, so it didn't matter what the show looked like or who was on it, it was still going to stay on.
TNG Actors Were Cast Incorrectly
- Thread starter ThePlumsofWrath
- Start date
They were renewed for a second season before even 7 or 8 had aired, so it didn't matter what the show looked like or who was on it, it was still going to stay on.
Stewart was a name of Dutch origin, IIRC, if we want to be petty about it.
My dear, you aren't being nearly petty enough, insofar as history demands.
In fact your pettiness is not just petty but dead wrong historically speaking.
There was no "Dutch" as of the time that "Stewart" or "Stuart" came into being. The language to which both derivations call home is middle English. It's a bit of a mix, I'll give you that much - but it ain't "Dutch."
But many had French Names and spoke a dialect of French.The Normans weren't French.
Well then, let's put it THIS way - they were more French than English - as we understand either of these terms.
Not that any of this has to do with a particular script-described French Captain (because after all we all know how an original Hollywood script is as sacrosanct as the Kings James Bible to certain fundamentalists) speaking on American free to air TV with an English accent. Oh, Sacre Bleu!!!
Stewart is God ,
The best captain by far ,
Sir Patrick we salute you !!!
The best captain by far ,
Sir Patrick we salute you !!!
Yeah, if there's one thing you can count on in TNG. If something is perceived a threat, Riker and Worf will want to shoot it out of the stars!
trevanian
Rear Admiral
Not in SKIN OF EVIL. Worf (for once) does not recommend 'attacking' or 'terminating the pregnancy'
Patrick Stewart is the one person who struck me as most like a real Captain. The sort you might really see on the bridge of a real ship. He was the right age at the time he was cast and he carried himself as an officer and a professional. I liked his formality and relative unease with certain social situations. And it was certainly a plus that he wasnt a silly rogue-ish ladies man hitting on the Hottie of the Week.
Picard was a great change from Kirk and Stewart nailed it. For comparison, Scott Bakula was almost the exact same age at the time he was cast as Archer as Stewart was in 1987 but never seemed to approach Stewart's gravitas or maturity. He was ok, but not as immediately believable as the Captain.
Picard was a great change from Kirk and Stewart nailed it. For comparison, Scott Bakula was almost the exact same age at the time he was cast as Archer as Stewart was in 1987 but never seemed to approach Stewart's gravitas or maturity. He was ok, but not as immediately believable as the Captain.
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Well, I have seen only the film adaptation. I guess I'm a Tennant fangirl, but I liked Stewart better in 'Hamlet'. The gravitas he brought to his roles there - especially as the ghost of Hamlet's father - is impressive.
Which probably means he was miscast as Claudius
, like a lot of other great Claudiuses because the character is supposed to be an incompetent, ugly guy who pales in comparison to his brother. Well, at least if you take what Hamlet says in theplay at face value, which might be a mistake. It's possible that only Hamlet sees Claudius this way and that's why his mother doesn't understand him in the scene in her bedroom. Seeing it this way, Stewart's casting gives the play an interesting and original angle. But I'm not sure that was intentional.However, it's sort of unfair to compare the two because they play very different characters. Hamlet is basically a wimp - sure, a wimp we can sympathise with at times and who occasionally says great, fundamental truths - but a wimp nonetheless. And often he's quite despicable, e.g. in his contempt for Polonius, his love's father, in his disregard for the lives of Polonius, Guildenstern and Rosencrantz and the stupid way he destroys the lives of Ophelia and Laertes.
ITA.
I always wondered about this, too. Of course, the audience that watched the original production would have known from the way the actor who played Claudius looked and acted - but there's no way to know that now, which gives opportunities for different interpretations. Many productions of Hamlet indeed tend to make Claudius quite attractive and charismatic - I've often thought, a bit too much - though they usually make sure to cast a famous actor with an especially commanding presence in the role of the Ghost to offset this.
Well, I have seen only the film adaptation. I guess I'm a Tennant fangirl, but I liked Stewart better in 'Hamlet'. The gravitas he brought to his roles there - especially as the ghost of Hamlet's father - is impressive.
Which probably means he was miscast as Claudius
I tend to think that the truth is somewhere in between. Hamlet's view is, no doubt, colored by his adoration of his father and his anger at his uncle. Claudius doesn't seem incompetent, he comes across as a rather smart guy, and I really doubt that he's that unattractive; Gertrude had to be attracted to something about him, didn't she (especially if their relationship, in one form or another, had started while Hamlet's father was still alive, which is never explicitly stated, but is there as a nagging suspicion)? I think he's probably quite competent and intelligent and can be charming, but I also think that he's more of the sly, smarmy, under-handed type, and that he had had some self-esteem problems and had been envious of his elder brother all his life. His brother was the more confident one, with a more commanding presence, more gravitas, someone who commanded respect - but he also seems to have been a rather arrogant, self-righteous, self-centered asshole, like so many 'great' monarchs and leaders... at least if the Ghost was really him, or a true representation of his character. I always felt the Ghost was a self-righteous, selfish jerk. I don't know if that was intentional or not - it's never easy to tell with Shakespeare. I think that Claudius was probably more loving and easier to be around and made Gertrude happier. And I think the difference in character makes sense because of the difference in the two brothers' circumstances: as the firstborn son, Hamlet's father was groomed to be the king since his birth, he was used to be the center of attention, and grew up with a lot of confidence and a sense of entitlement. Claudius, as the younger brother (and for the English audience, being a younger brother was even worse than it would have been for Danes - since younger brothers, in England, unlike in most of Europe, did not inherit anything), had always been in the shadow as of his elder brother, felt competitive and jealous all his life (maybe he only fell in love with Gertrude because she was his brother's wife and therefore a symbol of everything he was denied) and learned to use underhanded tactics to get what he wanted.
I haven't seen this version yet, but my first idea when I heard about the casting was to wonder if Stewart was miscast. However, if Stewart is playing both Ghost/Hamlet's father and Claudius, this puts a particularly interesting spin on it. That would seem to imply that the two were identical twins, and one of them being a couple of minutes older made all the difference. I quite like that idea.
That's interesting. Every production I've ever seen of Hamlet has had the actor who plays Caludius also playing the Ghost.
It always works well for me, and I would find it interesting to see another actor playing the Ghost because, for me, it's always been the other way around.
I saw this production on stage, and I have to say that I really struggled at times to dislike Claudius since there were several moments where I felt Stewart's charisma and sense of character just sucked me in. I've seen Hamlet several times and this has been the only time I've ever really had any affinity for Cladius.
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Worth remembering the initial order was just 13 episodes.
No, it wasn't.
TNG was budgeted, planned and marketed at NATPE in 1986 as a 26-episode series. The studio committed about 35 million dollars to it at the outset (that was quite a chunk of change at the time, especially for first-run syndication) and they always intended to produce at least that number.
Remember, the thing was first-run syndication - there was no single buyer who would make the decision to renew at mid-year or not. The studio was dealing directly with approximately 200 individual television stations, not waiting to see if CBS was gonna order the back nine or something. If they had shed any number of stations at mid-year or at any point during the year that would have had an impact on their decision to produce a second year, but there was never any realistic chance of cutting the season short nor any plan to do so.
Had the series not been profitable after the initial 26-episode run, the studio might have folded the episodes into the TOS syndication package and jacked up its price a bit.
